Make up a topic please, thank you. Utilitarianism Essay

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Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is based on the principle that an action is right if it promotes happiness and wrong if it tends to reverse happiness. The definitions of happiness are complex, and the general underpinning is what people generally consider happiness. In Mill’s definition of the generality of the effect utilitarianism has on individuals, he said ‘The only proof capable of being given that an object is visible, is that people actually see it. The only proof that a sound is audible is that people hear it... In like manner, I apprehend, the sole evidence it is possible to produce that anything is desirable, is that people do actually desire it’ CITATION Nec94 \l 1033 (Alican, 1994). Thus, whatever people consider the greater good and or pleasure is fairly complex and different to individuals and or a group of people. Porter finds the concept of utilitarianism flawed and has inherent immorality which justifies immoral decisions and actions but is justified by utilitarianism. According to (Porter, 2001), ‘the basic objection still remains, namely, that actions should be judged right or wrong in themselves, independent of the pleasurable consequences for the majority, and our endorsement of moral rules does not depend on the happiness they promote necessarily but on their intrinsic rightness.’ Porter argues that chasing the greater good may be oblivious of other people’s rights because the fundamental nature of utilitarianism does not provide adequate protection for individual rights. According to (Porter, 2001), the very fact that if many people can derive pleasure from a decision and or action can justify the intrusive violation of other person’s pleasure. Porter notes that according to utilitarianism, ‘if most people were to derive happiness from child molesting, we would not call it morally justified as a rule of conduct. Utilitarian ethics, therefore, does not provide us with a proper standard of behavior even in its rule-utilitarian form, and could well approve of immoral actions.’
The trolley dilemma backs Porter's argument. It is a hypothetical problem fronted by Philip Foot in 1967 that uncovers the inherent problems of utilitarianism. The trolley problem as described by CITATION Tho13 \l 1033 (Cathcart, 2013) is as follows:
You see a runaway trolley moving toward five people lying on the tracks. You are standing next to a lever that controls a switch. If you pull the lever, the trolley will be redirected onto a side track, and the five people on the main track will be saved. However, there is a single person lying on the sidetrack who would be killed by the trolley. You have two options:
Do nothing and allow the trolley to kill the five people on the main track.
Pull the lever, diverting the trolley onto the side track where it will kill one person.
There are several variants of the trolley problem such as transplant dilemma by Judith Jarvis Thompson among others. Regardless, utilitarianism requires one person to be sacrificed for the five people to survive. Utilitarianism requires the individual to save the five people even if it is by killing another person. Perfect utilitarianism would need th...